Just One Wrong Step
by Tragic Alchemy
Summary: Sherlock drags John with him to investigate the residence of an active bomber... they didn't quite expect an active bomb. As time passes, friends engage in a little something called self-disclosure. Plot borrowed from an episode of Castle. Expect some Sherlolly in the future with this. Rated T just in case.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **I recently watched an episode of Castle where this same scenario occurred, and I couldn't help but switch the characters in my mind and wonder how the Sherlock cast would handle this... it's choppy at first to set the stage for the rest of the story. Yes, I admit that this will turn into a bit of a Sherlolly in the end. Sorry, but I'm really not sorry haha!

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Sherlock. Or Castle for that matter.

* * *

**Just One Wrong Step**

Chapter 1

"I didn't call you," Detective Inspector Lestrade said to his consulting detective, blocking the entry from the sidewalk to the abandoned flat they had just got a lead on.

"But you need me," Sherlock responded simply.

"Wait, how did you know that this was where…" John began while standing behind the tall head of curls, but Sherlock just gave him a knowing, sideways glance. "Right, stupid question," he finished for himself.

"I may need you _later_," Lestrade admitted with a slight groan. "But right now, it's not such a good idea. This guy was a bomber, so we're organizing a sweep."

"Unnecessary," Sherlock said as he tried to move through Lestrade.

"How can you be so sure?" Lestrade inquired, squaring his shoulders as to continue blocking Sherlock's entry. Sherlock rolled his eyes and gave an exasperated sigh.

"Do you really need me to spell it out for you?" he asked, shoving his hands into his coat pockets.

"Considering I would be the one held responsible for the consequences of your actions, yes." He relaxed slightly, fully anticipating for Sherlock to take advantage of the opportunity to show off his perceptive abilities in a highly exaggerated matter, but of course, Sherlock already guessed that that's where Lestrade's train of thought was going and was expecting the loosening of his physical stance. This gave Sherlock the opportunity to use his own stature to barrel his way through the doorway, John trotting behind him.

"I'll sign a waiver," Sherlock called backwards sarcastically.

"I, uh…" John was mumbling. "I don't know if coming in uninvited to a bomber's flat is really a good idea, Sherlock.

"Oh, come on. Where's your sense of adventure?"

"I must have left it in Afghanistan with some other bombers I once knew," he answered sullenly. Sherlock ignored this, just as he had so many other comments from John, and instead focused on their surroundings. They were standing in a small living area, which fed into a small kitchen. The countertop was littered with old leather-bound books, and numerous documents were strewn all around the floor.

"Spacious," John tried joking. "Although it's a pity they didn't bother to tidy up before having company."

* * *

Sherlock and John took many moments to took around the flat and decide what details would be relevant to finding the bomber that had fled from the location in an obvious hurry and which were merely anecdotal. Well, we must be fair; it was mainly Sherlock pointing out the meaningful elements to the scene and him ignoring John's observations. Don't get me wrong, there were indeed moments when John had noticed something of importance, but Sherlock was "in the zone" and didn't hear his words. Moments later he would repeat John's very same remarks. John would just roll his eyes at such ignorance and continue to wonder what drew him to such a character.

"Ideas about where this guy has run off to?" John inquired as Sherlock continued to pace the floors. It was then that Sherlock's foot fell upon an area of the floor that had not yet been visited. He felt his weight shift in a strange way upon the sole of his shoe and froze as a metallic _click_ reached his ears.

"John?" he breathed, completely still.

"Hmm?" John responded, seemingly bored.

"I've just stepped on a bomb," he said flatly. This got John's attention.

"What?"

"A bomb, John. It's under my right foot," Sherlock clarified. "It's set to react as a mine would, responding to the weight placed upon it. It's going to detonate if I step off of it."

"Are you sure it isn't just a bad floorboard?" John asked hopefully. "I mean, this place is old."

Sherlock scoffed. "You think I can't tell the difference?"

John's frozen stance matched Sherlock's. "What do we do?" he asked, knowing that Sherlock would have an answer. After all, he always had an answer.

"Get Lestrade," Sherlock sighed.

* * *

"Well, it goes without saying that you shouldn't move for the time being," Lestrade told Sherlock.

"If it goes without saying, then why did you say it?" Sherlock crooned. Lestrade ignored him; it seemed that they were getting pretty good at ignoring one another.

"I have a team scanning the area for any other bombs, but so far, you seemed to have found the only one."

"Of course, he found it," John said, not sure if he was trying to turn that into a joke or not. One glare from Sherlock told him that he wasn't.

"Sir," an unfamiliar officer said from the doorway to the flat. "You were right; the only one is there," he finished while pointing at Sherlock's foot.

"Thanks," Lestrade said dismissively. The stranger nodded and left as quickly as he had entered.

"So, what now?" John asked. He was doing his best to decode the situation on his own, but this one was slightly out of the ordinary for him.

"I have investigators trying to find our perp, and meanwhile, our bomb team is going to snake a camera into the floor to get a better look at that device," he said with another nod toward where Sherlock was standing.

"Can't we just try the old Indiana Jones trick?" John asked, trying his best to sound serious. "You know, throw something of equal weight on top of it and yank Sherlock off at the same time?"

"Don't be absurd," Sherlock grunted. "If my observations are any indication, then this device is extremely sensitive. Even the slightest movement of my body or the tiniest shift in weight could set it off." John swallowed hard.

"Then is using that camera safe?" John asked Lestrade.

"As a precaution, we'll come in sideways. We've considered a radius of about 1 meter, so stay at least that far from him, got it?" John nodded stiffly. "Until then, sit tight." Then Lestrade was gone, just Sherlock and John left in the flat. John glanced around, trying to figure out how he was going to pass the time. 'Might as well make myself comfortable,' he thought and pulled a padded barstool away from the countertop.

"What are you doing?" Sherlock inquired, seemingly offended. John looked up inquisitively at him before he had the chance to sit down.

"I, uh… you're the one standing on the bomb," he said, thinking it should be obvious as to why he had the freedom to sit while Sherlock did not.

"You're trying to babysit me," Sherlock decided.

"Well, I'm not leaving," John shot back as he defiantly sat down, leaned against the counter, and stared at his friend.

"What good are you staying here? You should be corralling Lestrade and the rest of his clowns. God knows they need any help they can get."

"I'm not leaving," John repeated. "Lestrade will figure something out."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Something weird happened with this chapter... I sat down to write, and the discussion went into a completely unintended direction. My writing has a life of its own. I suppose the T rating will come into play in this chapter with some detailed drug conversations. Merry Christmas!

**Disclaimer: **I don't own BBC's Sherlock (or ABC's Castle from which this plot was borrowed).

* * *

**Just One Wrong Step**

Chapter 2

"Why won't you tell me?" John pushed.

"Just because I could die with one twitch of a toe does not mean that I am about to turn this discussion into a confessional," Sherlock said, his baritone in an even tone.

"I hope you have fresh nicotine patches on," John sighed.

"What? Why?"

"You know how twitchy and restless you can get," John reminded him. This was a thought he hadn't considered, and he gave the look that told John just that. John didn't know whether to be nervous for him or pleased with himself for having a thought that Sherlock clearly didn't.

Sherlock was always one to have control over practically everything. Keyword: practically. Practically and entirely did not have the same meaning, and Sherlock considered this a weakness.

"It started off as an experiment," Sherlock began. John raised an eyebrow expectantly. Oh, goodie. Story time!

"My mind decodes the environment so quickly that it is at times maddening. By definition, barbiturates are depressants, they slow biological and neurological functioning, and so that's where I started." John blinked. So, this was not the story he was expecting. He had previously asked if he ever had a girlfriend, and Sherlock had refused to answer. Instead, he was giving him the history of his drug dependence? Regardless, self-disclosure was a rare occurrence for Sherlock Holmes, and so John didn't interrupt. The gravity of the situation must have begun to take its toll on the detective.

"But I didn't like the sedated sensation. It made me foggy. Slow. I realized then that I liked the quickness of my thoughts; it was the psychotic delusions and paranoia of my perceptions that I didn't want, so next on the list were opiates. They didn't slow anything, they just numbed it."

"Heroin?" John guessed.

"Yes, heroin," Sherlock confirmed. "Along with opium itself and the occasional visit from the morphine goddess." He had this odd, far-off look in his eyes as they darkened into a troubled shade of grey.

"The morphine goddess," John repeated. "Was she… ?" He wasn't sure what he wanted to know about this woman Sherlock had leveled with a higher deity.

"Nah," Sherlock said dismissively with the wave of a hand. "The morphine goddess was here," he said, tapping a finger on the side of his head, careful to keep everything from his abdomen down to the floor stationary so as to not disturb the beckoning mine beneath him. Confused lines graced John's forehead, but then he reminded himself that he would never fully understand the brain mechanisms of Sherlock and how they differed so much from his own. An army doctor could only tell you so much about the brain.

"How long?" John inquired, wondering how long he stuck with this class of drugs before moving on to his next area of experimentation.

"Heh," Sherlock breathed with a twisted smirk. "_You never forget your first love._" The cliché felt strange on his lips, but the truth of it felt right. Then he sighed before continuing.

"Mycroft got ahold of me before any irreversible damage had been done. People say I should be thankful to him, but all he did was take me from one uncomfortable reality and place me in another. Why should I feel indebted for that?" John locked eyes with Sherlock and realized it was an honest question.

"Uh," John stammered. Since when did Sherlock ask him questions like this? Yes, the bomb was definitely taking its toll. "He saved your life" was the best answer John could find. Sherlock chuckled cynically at that.

"Did he? Or did he just doom me to this one?" Sherlock asked as he carefully outstretched his hands, motioning toward his current predicament.

"Stepping on that bomb was a fluke, Sherlock," John said. Sherlock dropped his eyes, gave the infamous Sherlock smirk of derision, and placed his hands back in his pockets. John sighed, realizing that this new direction in the discussion had ended. "What about the nicotine?" he asked instead. His goal was just to keep the conversation moving.

"It's a stimulant," Sherlock said.

"Wouldn't that make you crazy? Or crazier?"

"It's the boost my mind needs… without it, everything races around aimlessly. The nicotine grants focus. Direction." John nodded as if in understanding. Maybe he couldn't empathize, but maybe with enough motivation, he could sympathize.

Sherlock once asked what it was like in his head. 'It must be so boring,' he had said. Now, John was wondering what it was like in his friend's head. If his own was boring, Sherlock's must have been boundless and unfathomable. It's a wonder he wasn't crazy. Or maybe he was. Or maybe Sherlock straddled that fine line between sanity and lunacy so skillfully that it was pure art. That's what Sherlock was: not a scientist, but an artist.

Lestrade's appearance signaled the end of the discussion.

"How's that camera coming along?" John asked immediately.

"We found a point of entry and just wanted to give you two a heads up," he said.

"A heads up?" Sherlock questioned. "It's been what, nearly two hours and you still haven't even put the camera through? God, I knew you were incompetent, but this is just… congratulations, you have graduated from aggravating to infuriating."

"Sometimes you forget how we operate, Sherlock," Lestrade spat.

"With great ineptitude?" he shot back without missing a beat.

"Is this really helping?" John interjected. "Two hours is long enough. Let's get a look at the bomb." This put a stop to the pointless arguing, and Lestrade gave a simple nod before he turned to leave the room, allegedly to attend to the camera.

John sighed and Sherlock slightly shook his head in disgust. It was obvious he was still conscious of his movements given his current predicament.

John couldn't help but allow his mind drift back to the recent conversation and Sherlock's reliance upon substances… was he going to be okay? Well, at least the nicotine wasn't nearly as deadly as his other habit, but still… two hours, and nothing had happened to help alleviate the current problem. Would Sherlock's boredom get the better of him? Or would it be the racing thoughts to cause problems?

John bit at his bottom lip, attempting to mask his concern, but standing on a bomb or not, Sherlock was still as perceptive as other. "Oh, stop fretting," Sherlock sighed with a roll of the eyes.

Silence.

Then admission. "I might need another nicotine patch."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **Sorry it's taken so long to post this chapter! I work two jobs, am finishing a Mass Effect fanfic, and am currently trying to catch up on some reading and television (Series 3 of Sherlock included!). Anyway, much love and enjoy!

**Disclaimer: **I do not own BBC's Sherlock (or ABC's Castle from which this plot was borrowed).

* * *

**Just One Wrong Step**

Chapter 3

Breathing became so much more complicated during allergy season, especially when Molly Hooper couldn't breathe through her mouth anyway as she was forced to sleep with a night guard. Grinding her teeth while she slept was a habit she had inherited from her father, and after waking with a migraine nearly every day, she gave in and had one custom fitted.

Although she lived alone, Molly always felt sheepish when having to pop that large piece of plastic into place on her top row of teeth. It reminded her of when she was a teenager, face graced with acne and a mouth full of wire. My, how people just don't change sometimes. So there Molly was sneezing and sniffling and trying so hard to breathe through the cracks in her night guard when the phone rang.

"Who…?" Molly struggled to sit up and spit out the piece of plastic between her teeth. Of course, she shouldn't have been surprised that her phone was ringing as it was only five o'clock in the afternoon. Her sleep schedule had gone wonky while working bizarre hours during the previous week.

"Molly, it's John," said the voice on the other end.

"John?" Molly responded, the synapses in her head not effectively communicating at that moment.

"Watson," John clarified.

"Oh!" exclaimed Molly, blushing in embarrassment at her density… and at the dribble of drool dripping down her chin from the swift removal of her night guard. "I guess I didn't recognize your number," she covered.

"Could you do me a favor? Well, it's more of a favor for Sherlock." Molly perked her ears at that. She knew she just continued to eat from the palm of his hand, but she couldn't help herself. Sherlock was… well, he was Sherlock. He was magnificent. Her mind drifted as she remembered all the times his knowing gaze bored deep into hers… then she shook herself free from the image the moment she realized that John was still on the other end of the telephone.

"Yes, of course," she answered without any further consideration. If it was for Sherlock, it was going to be worth it. Maybe not right now, but one day it would be worth it… right?

"We need nicotine patches," he said.

"Nicotine patches?"

"Yeah, like those patches you slap on yourself when you're trying to quit smoking."

"You're trying to quit?" Molly asked, genuinely interested. "I didn't know you were a smoker to begin with."

"I'm not. It's for Sherlock… It's a long story. I'll explain everything once you get here. Here's the address…"

* * *

Sherlock's knees were itching with the need to pace. What was taking so long?!

"Molly's on her way," John said as he re-entered the room, adjusting his coat after shoving his mobile phone back into his pocket.

"Molly? Why?" Sherlock questioned. "I'm not dead _yet_."

John shot him a look suggesting that Sherlock knew better. "You know that's not why I called her."

"While we're on the topic, why _did _you call her?"

"Why is Molly such a sore subject with you all of a sudden?" John inquired, crinkling his eyebrows at the thought. Sherlock was aggravating, brutal, and not very sociable, but why was he getting so defensive over this mutual friend of theirs? "What's the deal with Molly?" he backtracked instead. The Sherlock and Molly connection was well over John's head, and he hoped that Sherlock could explain it to him.

"What deal?" Sherlock scoffed.

"You know. The deal! The thing! This weird… I don't know… this funny relationship… affair… circumstance…" Even John couldn't piece together the relationship Sherlock and Molly shared. If anyone could even call it a relationship. John took a moment to think back on the numerous compliments Sherlock had given her just to manipulate her into helping him… and it angered John to his inner core. "You constantly use that poor girl just for your own benefit," John finally accused.

"Oh, come on," Sherlock whined uncharacteristically.

"No. I want to understand. Enlighten me," John said. Sherlock sighed, shoving his hands back into his pockets. It was suddenly hot in the stale air that the two men stood in, and slight droplets of sweat began to collect at Sherlock's collar.

"What? It's nothing. She's a friend," Sherlock said, sounding eerily like a fifteen-year-old boy to John.

"Nothing?" John investigated.

"Nothing," Sherlock confirmed. "She has access to what I need."

"And you know how to gain access to _her_," John decided, shaking his head in disgust of his friend. "How could you do that to her?"

"Do you really need to ask that?" Sherlock responded with the raise of a doubtful eyebrow.

"Wow," John breathed in exasperation. He knew he didn't care for the people he sought to save while solving the puzzles in the world of criminality, but he didn't even seem to care for those who cared for _him_? Like Molly?

Sherlock studied John the way he did so many times before. "You're disappointed in me," he concluded after taking in the context of the conversation and John's behavioral responses.

"Yes. Yes, I'm disappointed," John responded with some slight undertones of venom. He was reacting like an overprotective brother, and he recognized that. Not only did he recognize it, he accepted it. Molly was a wonderful, intelligent person who deserved every happiness, and Sherlock spat upon that with his cynicism and manipulations. This realization just added fuel to the raging fire inside of John. The sympathy he had previously felt for Sherlock when hearing his personal drug history had all but disappeared as he reflected upon the pained and obviously one-sided relationship between Molly Hooper and Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock, on the other hand, was perplexed by John's reaction. Wasn't the whole meaning of their existence to solve problems? Molly allowed them to reach conclusions; case closed. "She's completely necessary," Sherlock tried.

"Oh, quit being so logical!" John demanded. "You're human! This means you're allowed to feel things!" John couldn't believe himself. He was asking Sherlock to put logic and reason aside? To actually consider human emotion? What sacrilege! Sherlock at least thought so… he was having a difficult time properly decoding the current conversation.

"John," Sherlock began calmly, trying to ease into a new direction since John was visibly showing signs of emotional distress, and this wasn't exactly the best state to be in when one of them was standing on a bomb. "Hurting Molly has never been my intent."

"No, of course not. Using her was your intent." Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"Oh, come off it," Sherlock grumbled.

"I won't!" John decided, turning to start pacing in his anger. "You tell me one thing, Sherlock," he demanded. "Just tell me one thing… do you give the slightest damn about her?" Sherlock stared at him in response, giving John his fair share of thought. He opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. Curious. He instantly closed his mouth and tried to figure out what happened… was he unsure of his answer? Of course, he wanted to say "no" to John. The answer was always "no." Caring never helped anyone. So why was it so hard to say that he didn't care about Molly?

Sherlock cocked his head to the side, thinking this over and over. Was it possible to overanalyze this? Of course it was, but maybe this question needed closer examination that he had cared to give at first. _Caring._ There was that word again. Meanwhile, John's phone shrieked a text alert from his pocket.

"She's here. She's outside," John sighed. He looked back up at his restricted friend and pointed a finger at him. "I still want an answer," he said. "It'll just have to wait… now, I'm going to go have Lestrade let her in. You… be nice."

"Nice?"

"Yes, nice," John confirmed, completely exhausted. "You know… how you're supposed to treat friends." The corner of Sherlock's mouth turned up at that remark, but John didn't see it. He was already letting himself out to catch Molly up on how their friend had landed himself in the current predicament.


End file.
